Dr Patrick Dixon is often described as Europe's leading futurist and has been ranked as one of the world's 20 most influential business thinkers. He is also one of the world's great keynote speakers at corporate events. Get the best conference speakers around and your reputation will shine like the sun. Make a mistake with conference speakers in planning your event and it's the end of your career.

The trouble is that the best global authorities can be the worst conference speakers. It's hard for conference speakers to wow a sophisticated audience of senior executives or board members in a one hour speech. The best conference speakers are true professionals: it's their job. Conference speaking is what these people do. Conference speakers are good, mediocre or just plain awful, but the best conference speakers are those that speak at conferences all the time. Conference speaking has become a specialty in it's own right. Conference speakers can have the best ideas in the world, be the greatest geniuses alive, but if their audience can't hear what they say, if they are dull and boring, if the audience can't relate to the message, what's the point?

"Motivational speakers" are a particular risk. You need more than a set of slick slides, inspirational quotations and funny stories (jokes can badly misfire in multicultural gatherings). Most executives need to be convinced about purpose, vision, data and direction before they will allow themselves to be carried along by an enthusiastic presenter.

Great speakers focus attention on what is really important, have a deep understanding of each audience (preparation really matters), help people see the way ahead, provide practical answers and make people feel good about themselves and what they do.

See information about how Dr Dixon works with clients to create highly successful events.

Dr Patrick Dixon is one of the world's leading conference speakers. He's often described as Europe's leading Futurist. As a corporate lecturer at large global events in up to three countries a week, Dr Dixon aims to help conference participants touch and feel the future with multimedia presentations on every aspect of what tomorrow's management challenges will be like It's not enough for a futurist to make informed guesses or detached, philosophical comments on public platforms, or as part of workshops, seminars, think tanks or client events. A successful futurist has to be able to see, feel and taste the future and communicate it in ways that are relevant, down to earth and life-changing. And that means different messages for different industries and audiences.

No conference speaker on the future can predict specific events such as the exact moment to buy or sell a stock, but the underlying trends are usually beyond dispute and easily described in keynote lectures or presentations. The key for successful conference speakers is not only being able to interpret the outworking of those trends and to be as accurate as possible about timescale, but also to be an interesting, entertaining and mind-stretching communicator.

Designing a great corporate event is an art, and great executive conferences are rare. The secret of success is a great opening visionary lecture that sets the scene, and creates the whole atmosphere and drive for the conference. A great conference speaker brings an electricity into the auditorium almost before they begin to speak, instantly grabbing attention and carrying conference participants along on the crest of a wave.

A poor conference speaker is obvious in the first sixty seconds. There is no spark, no passion or fire. The lecture delivery is flat and the content difficult to pay attention to or even irrelevant.

Great presentations are hard work, physically, mentally and emotionally - for the speaker of course - but should also be stimulating, enervating, exciting and engaging for senior executives.

Short clips of different conference videos on different issues:

Economics, Finance & Financial ServicesBanking - many of Patrick's clients are global banks, investment fundsEconomics issues - Patrick creates a big picture of global trendsInsurance - Patrick has worked with many of the world's largest insurers